The first principle of influence is to get and hold people’s attention (I show you 7 ways to do this below).

Often this ‘attention’ is attracted by outlandish or shocking tactics, the kind that make you exclaim, “Holy crap, did you see that!”  And this does work.  But often times you can get and hold someone’s attention simply by telling a compelling story in a quiet voice.  How you do it isn’t as important as how effectively you do it and how deeply you can hold their attention.

Keep in mind also that not all attention is good attention, and we’ll get to that in a very specific and important blog post that is coming up soon.  And that’s why …

It’s only good attention if it achieves what you want.

If you do not have someone’s attention, then you cannot convey the value of your idea. Attention is the first stage of all human behaviour change. Despite the millions of bits of information we receive each day, our brain is able to bring certain things to our attention – and you need to be one of those things.

It makes sense to have a plan about what you are going to do with the attention once you get it.  What is the desired outcome.  In the broadest sense the aim has to be a lasting connection with people.  I might hire a sky-writing plane on a blue sky summer day, and fly over the beach suburbs casting a message for every one to see – and therefore grab the attention of thousands of people – and yet build no lasting connection with them at all.

The key take home here is don’t pull attention grabbing ‘stunts’ if they don’t create long-term attention and lasting connection with people – unless, of course, you’re just doing the stunt for fun.

7 ways that you can grab and hold someone’s attention

Use these ideas in your conversations, writing, or video creation this week and let me know how you go.

1. Deviation

In order to use this technique, the first thing you say or write has to deviate from what the audience is expecting.  It doesn’t have to be controversial, although controversy can fit into this category.

For example, let’s say you’re about to give a presentation and everyone has read your speakers bio and have naturally put you in a ‘box’.  Whatever it is that they’re expecting you to say when you first stand up, say something different, say the opposite – say something that shifts them from their expectation.  If you were giving a presentation on property investment, you could start by saying “property investment is completely over-rated”.  Or if you were at a BBQ and everyone was talking about a particular sports star and why she’s successful, you could chime in and say, “I think another reason she’s successful is actually …” and give a reason that no-one is expecting or has considered.

Each of these example’s will more strongly grab the audience’s attention, because it’s not what they’re expecting.  Some call this the ‘surprise’ factor, other’s call it a ‘pattern interrupt’, I’ve just always called in The Deviation, and there are multiple ways to use this approach.  In fact, I’ve used this in scientific presentations I’ve given.

Normally, when you turn up to a meeting with a group of scientists, you stand at the lectern, and there are some very standard expectations around what you’re going to do.  Everything from the slides you’ll use, the words you’ll use, the clothes you’ll wear, the structure of the presentation – it’s all very standard.  If you want to grab attention, deviate from the standard, even in a small way.

Let’s analyse the last scientific presentation I gave.  The first thing I did was to stand out and away from the lectern.  This alone was a deviation from normal.  The first slide I put up was my expected scientific title, but I had a very casual sub-heading – another deviation.  The very next slide was a complete deviation from normal: I had a photo of myself and told a story from way back that helped to explain how I had come to be involved in the project I was about to describe.

So, the first three things I did in this presentation were all deviations from normal.  The feedback from one of the Professor’s at the end was, “…as thoughtful and engaging as I’ve come to expect from you Nic”.

Clothe’s can achieve a similar effect.  If people are expecting you to wear a certain type of clothing, wear something slightly different that expected and you’ll achieve the effect of The Deviation.  Of course, all of this can backfire if the deviation is too large or just not acceptable.  You want to grab people’s attention, not put them offside.

You can, however, take the deviation so far that it becomes weird or bizarre – but is still effective.  Being weird definitely gets attention.  Sometimes, in order to break through the noise, you just have to do something that puts people out of their comfort zone in order to grab attention.

What I’m talking about here is something so unusual it might not even seem related to the idea you’re going to share.  It’s just completely left of field.  I’ve seen street performers use this.  They do something completely extravagant or bizarre in order to generate a crowd, and then they get into their show.  The streaker on the cricket or football pitch is another example.  Other examples include:

• Email subject headlines that are outrageous and nothing to do with the real subject of the email – just so people will open up
• Speakers who start with an unbelievable story that’s unrelated to their topic – just to grab attention
• Coaches or trainers who break up their workshops by getting people to do activities that break social norms

Deviations are incredibly powerful, especially when they are layered on top of each other, and if they are used sequentially, so that there are a continuous stream of them.  This technique alone can hold an audiences attention for a very long time.

2. Alarm

Maslow described the hierarchy of people’s needs, with basic survival and safety needs being our first priority.  This means anything that threatens these survival and safety needs will likely grab attention by activating the ‘Alarm’ system in our brain – and then we can’t help but pay attention to it.

Just yell out the word “Spider!” and watch what happens.

This is classic journalism too.  If you listen to the news or read the paper and you’ll see ‘Alarm’ headlines everywhere.  What categories can you use?

• the air we breathe
• the food we eat
• the water we drink
• our homes
• our clothing
• our sleep
• our finances, business and employment
• our health
• our family
• our community stability and freedom

These are just some of the topics that will grab attention because we place a high value on these things and they have high importance.  There are many more topics – but you don’t need more topics to get benefit from this post – you just need to chose one or two of the one’s I’ve listed and use them.  Then you’ll get benefit.

3. Magic Wand

This one is almost the opposite to ‘Alarm’.  If you could wave a magic wand and give people what they really want, they’d pay you a lot of attention.  Instead of being a threat, this is aspirational.  For example, one of your mates really wants tickets to a show.  There’s none left.  You turn up and announce you’ve got a spare ticket – d’ya think you’ll grab attention?

Of course, this all sounds basic – and it is – but if it’s so basic, then why don’t people use this on purpose, and more often, to have more effective influence?  It’s the modern day marketers approach of finding out what people want and then giving it to them.

This is Google’s business model and it’s been working pretty good for them since 1998 – and more specifically, Google has held our attention.

To get someone’s attention, let them know that you either have what they want, or you know how to help them get what they want.  Use images that show or portray what they want.  Make your appearance reflect what they want.

4. Story

If you’re still reading this, then I’ve been able to hold your attention.  Notice that I’ve already touched on a number of stories in this post so far.

• the story of the sky-writing plane
• the story of the streaker (I only had to mention this, and you knew the story)
• the scientific presentation
• the mate who wants the ticket that you’ve got
• the Google story

Every night at our place, my kids love me to read them stories.  And the stories they like are about good versus evil, love and romance, happily ever after, the underdog, the rescue, the hero, the mystery, the challenge.  Stories get people’s attention, there’s no doubt about it.  I’m a natural story-teller, it’s one of the reasons that I’ve been influential in my life.  Some people are much better than me at story telling.  Other’s not so.

But forget about others – all that matters is your ability to tell stories – and I guarantee that you can use this more than you’re using it right now.  Use stories in your conversations.  Use then in your writing.  Start a conversations with, “So I was …” and tell a short story that has an ending that fits right in with the idea you’re trying to convey.

In a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, two professors make the point that despite all the new scientific evidence regarding health care, the reason that the ‘science’ doesn’t make it’s way to the public very effectively is because it is communicated with ‘facts’ and not with ‘narrative’.

So, skim over this technique or dismiss it at your own loss.  The lack of story telling by the scientific and medical community could be one of the main reasons that good science takes so long to make it into the hands of the public.  I could go so far to say as the lack of a good story could be a matter of life and death.

5. Secret

I’ve got an admission.  I used to despise the use of this technique in marketing.  The ’7 secrets to success’ or ’10 secrets to a happy life’.  I specifically did not read the book ‘The Secret’ because of the title.  As it turns out, the secret wasn’t a secret at all.

Anyway … two things happened that revived my understanding of this powerful influencing factor.  First, I’d forgotten my childhood.  As a kid, secrets were very powerful.  If someone knew something that I didn’t know, it would arouse great curiosity.  If I saw someone telling secrets, whispering, or sharing ‘knowing looks’, I just had to get in on it.  I had to know ‘the secret’.  I see this now with my own kids, and I use secrets to great effect.

Try this.  ”Hey kids, get into bed and I’ll tell you a secret”.  Bam – they’re in bed all eager to hear.

There’s one major ingredient in all this that has to be present in order for it to work – and if this ingredient is missing, it will fail dismally.  In fact, the lack of this ingredient is exactly why I had come to despise the use of this technique.

You actually have to have a good secret.  If you don’t have a good secret to share, then people will feel embarrassed that they allowed curiosity to overwhelm them for nothing of value.  If I don’t have a good secret to share with my kids, then next time I use that technique, they wont believe me.

So, use this with caution.  If you don’t actually have a good secret, and it is just a lure, then you must still deliver something of value so that the person feels as if their curiosity was justified.

6. Be worthy of attention

If what you’ve got is worthy of attention, then you should have some attention – right?  And if you’ve got attention, then this will attract more attention.

This is the conclusion people come to when they see that someone has attention.  The very fact that other people are interested in you is a cue to them that they should at least take a look.  Granted, I’m just describing an everyday experience.  If you see your work colleagues all hovered around someone’s desk, you want to know what’s going on.  If you see a few people staring up at something, it’s very difficult not to look as well.

Even though we’re all familiar with this principle, my challenge has been how I can use it in small, effective ways throughout the day, to get attention and increase my influence.  One thing I’ve tried with my kids is to find a Youtube video of something that I’d like them to do – it’s social proof that other people are doing this thing, whether it’s singing, playing guitar, exercising – whatever behaviour I’m trying to influence my kids to do.

Why it works?  Because the video proves that other kids are already paying attention to the very idea I’m trying to sell to my kids.  The academics call this ‘social proof’.  You can use this, like I do, with kids, or you can use it on stage, like I do, in front of hundreds of people.  You just need to help people understand that other people are paying attention to you, or your ideas.

7. Reverse Attention

Reverse attention is where even though you’re the one who wants attention, you get it by paying attention to the person you want attention from.

Even though I’ve listed this last, it can be one of the most important techniques if used correctly and in the right context.  An obvious context where this works is dating.  If you want attention from someone, then pay them attention.  And if you pay them attention, you will hold their attention for as long as you’re paying them attention.

In other words, don’t talk about yourself, brag about yourself, and bore them with stories that they don’t want to hear.  Instead, ask them open ended questions about themselves.  Their opinions.  Their stories.  If you notice something about them, mention it.

I’m sitting here typing this post and my son is on the lounge playing his wii.  He’s not paying me any attention.  I know that all I have to do to completely enter his world and have him totally engage with me is quietly sit next to him, and mention something about what he’s doing.  Ask him what his current challenge is.  Notice if he’s doing well, or finding it difficult – and straight away I’m in.  Imagine if I then looked up Youtube to find a solution to his challenge and said, “hey, you wanna know the secret to this level?”.

This is combining reverse attention with secrets.  These two combined are powerful enough to get me a deeply connected audience with my son.

What you can do now that you’ve read this

The main content of this post is in the 7 ways you can grab someone’s attention.  If you read and remember anything from this post it’s that section.  Knowledge is merely interesting until it is applied.  So, even if you’ve read my 7 ways and it’s not new information, I’d still encourage you to look at how you communicate in your life – be it your personal life or business life – and figure out how you can use these 7 techniques more effectively.

That’s the evergreen nature of studying influence – you will never master it – you will only get better at it.  After you’ve used at least one of these techniques, please come back here and leave me a comment to let me know what you did and how it worked out.

And if I could ask one small favour … we need to let Google know that I’m sharing information about this stuff.  I can rant and rave all I like, but the way we can influence Google together is if I write and then you click on the Like button, the Tweet button, and the Google +1 button.  With three little clicks we can send a signal to Google about this information.  Ta.

I’ve finally decided to write a short series for you on my lessons in influence, marketing, advertising …

These are not ‘academic’ (yawn) lessons, but real lessons I’ve learned and applied in my life and business.

What you can gain from this series.

There’s a million (or so) blogs and books and stuff on influence, marketing and advertising.  But there’s only one of me.  And there are things about me that are quite unique. And so if you relate to me, then you might just gain additional insights from my lessons, as apposed to someone else’s.  See, we are who we are because of how we’ve come to be … and the reason I first started studying influence was to understand myself.

• Why was I the kid who got to meet his favourite musician and get some one-on-one coaching?
• Why was I the teenager who was admitted to the secret inner circle at my martial arts school?
• Why was I the young bloke who got to record a song at EMI studios, and end up in a music production company with a world class producer and songwriter?
• Why was I the Uni student who got to house-sit the lecturers place and land myself a coveted summer research job?
• Why was I the guy who was able to start a national student organisation?
• Why was I the student who was able to start an international scientific journal and attract some of the most influential scientists in the field to participate?
• Why was I asked to give a keynote presentation in London and have a special meeting with HRH Prince Charles?

It goes on and on…and each time I find myself in these situations, I look around and say, “who me…?  Are you sure you mean me?”

And I try to figure out just what the hell I did that made those things happen.  It seems that being able to influence people is something that kinda just happens for me  - but not all the time.  And this is why I am a student of influence these days.  I wanted to find out what I was doing ‘right’ and also find out what I was doing ‘wrong’ when things didn’t work out.  And I’ve figured out a whole lot of things.

And so this is what you can gain from me.  I now understand what I do ‘right’ and I’ve learned what I was doing ‘wrong’ and I can expose all of it.

Why this will help you.

From the time we open our mouths as babies and cry with hunger, we are trying and learning to influence others.  Babies don’t cry from hunger just to convey information to their parents – they cry to influence their parents to bring them food.  The more effective you are at influencing other people, the easier it seems to get things done – and more importantly, the easier it is to get what you want (even if what you want is selfless and philanthropic).

So, how does this work and what do you need to do now?

I’ve put together a series of blog posts called, Lessons in Influence.  This is part Zero.  All you need to do now is start at Part 1.

But before you do … can I ask just a very small favour?  Google, Facebook and Twitter need a signal from you that you have read this post and enjoyed it.  All you need to do is click the buttons on this page to Like, Tweet and +1 it (will take you less time than it took to read this sentence), and then leave a comment below telling me about your experience and thoughts about influence.

Thanks for that and I’ll catch you in Part 1.

Once when I was a very young kid, we visited some friends who lived on a farm.  It was winter, and I was wearing a hand knitted jumper.

I got burs all over that jumper.  

All up and down the sleeves, the front and the back – and because my hands were cold, and the jumper was knitted of wispy wool, those burs weren’t coming out easily.  I was overwhelmed, and asked my Mum to get them all out.

Fortunately for me, she declined the offer and said, “you pick them out”.  I said, “I can’t, there’s too many and my fingers hurt”. She responded with, “just take them out one at a time”.

I sat there for a long, long time.  I carefully pulled them out one at a time.  I hit many points of overwhelm that I had to push through, and I look back at what I learned with that one lesson.

1. It was the first time I recall really having to push through internal resistance to action
2. It was a lesson in persistence in the face of feeling overwhelmed
3. I learned that big tasks can be broken down into small chunks
4. And most of all, it was a little lesson in learning how to be a better version of me

Funny the things you remember.

Are you a gimmick or a role model?

In life, I’ve had a few role models, and I’ve had a few infatuations.  These infatuations had influence over me, however the role models had much longer lasting influence.  The infatuations were like short-term gimmicks, whereas the role models were simply awesome .

For example, dying your hair red might influence someone for a moment, but being kind and taking a genuine interest in someone will influence them forever.  Being outrageously rude or politically incorrect might grab quick attention, but standing for something and being prepared to back yourself with your actions, now that’ll keep long-term attention.

The lesson here is that if you want to be influential, then be awesome.  Or with less hyperbole, be someone who others admire and look up to.  Be someone who others aspire to be like.  Be a role model in your circle of friends and colleagues, or in your market.  Be someone who pushes through internal resistance, overcomes overwhelm, and does something great.  Break down a task that seems too big for others, into small chunks that you can deal with by persisting.

Do the freakin’ work.  Stay up late.  Get up early.  Do the things you fear.

Some people reckon that turning up is half the battle.  Well, sorry, but half just aint good enough, and neither is just turning up.  So, don’t just turn up – turn up and be bloody awesome.  Turn up and be the person that other people want to be.  That’s having influence.

Being influential means having the ability to affect someone without much apparent effort.  This is important because much of what you want out of life involves the behaviours and decisions of others.  If you help other people get what they want, then you’re more likely to get what you want, so it makes sense to influence people to help them get what they want.

Why would you need to be influential to help someone get what they want?

Because very often people either don’t know what they want, aren’t sure what they want, or they know what they want, but are confused by all the options.

Sometimes helping people decide to get what they want is a real effort. Sometimes, it can be even harder to help people get what they need.  Your gig is to help them get what they want and need, and you’ll find that this is easier if you are influential.

The Pig Story

You’ve probably heard that line about “don’t try and teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig“.  And there is gold in this statement.  You’ll be most effective trying to help people who want to be helped, and are able to be helped.  And this series of posts is all about how to do that more effectively.

The first lesson from this post is to understand that your idea – your product – your service – will only be of interest to certain people, and not others.  There are just some people who will not agree with you, like you, or see the need for your stuff.  So, the advice here is to stop spending your time trying to influence these people, and focus instead on the people who will respond to you.  Identify these people.  Design communications specifically for them.  Design your products and services for these people, and these people only.

And you say, “But how do we get hold of these people …?”

How we attract attention

Curiosity is a very powerful.  It is one of the main tools you can use to grab someones attention.  On digital platforms like the web, email, and smart devices, people choose what interests them based on headlines, email subject lines, or video titles.  These short lines of text, often no more than about 70 – 150 characters, are the main reason someone will read your article or blog post, watch your video, or subscribe to your podcast.

Ask yourself how much time you spent this past week reading or watching something without first being hooked in by the title, headline, or subject line?

It’s pretty sobering really.  The extent of your success could come down to just a few words.

So, make sure you write your headlines specifically for the people you are most likely to influence.  Don’t just keep them in mind – do your absolute best to put yourself in their shoes, so that you can understand what they want from their perspective.  Don’t spend time trying to get broad attention, when what you want is actually very targeted and specific attention.

If they’re paying attention, keep it

If someone has been hooked by the curiosity you create, then you need to make the magic continue.  They are reading or watching your stuff because they are interested in it, and when you get someones attention, this is the time for you to put your best foot forward.  You may never get their attention again, so make the most of it while you’ve got it.

Here are some ideas of how to keep their attention.

Prevention vs Cure

People are often highly motivated to take action to correct a problem.  When there’s no problem, people are less motivated.  When something needs a cure, there is a sense of urgency.  When there’s nothing to cure, the urgency fades.

This was evident in my health care practice.  When someone was in pain, they would attend their appointments, take their medication, and do their remedial exercises.  When they were out of pain, they’d more likely miss their appointments and go back to their prior habits.  I realised this early on, and so then layered my consultations with a variety of ‘influence tactics’ and as I got better at it, I had a large number of people who did accept the idea that ‘prevention is better than cure’.

But, even so, there is enough evidence around us to know that it is easier to ‘sell’ a cure than it is to ‘sell’ a prevention (unless the prevention is as urgent as a cure).

In order to keep people engaged, try focussing on cures, not prevention.  Once you’ve got them hooked, that’s when you can educate them that it’s better to prevent things, than have to cure them.  You could choose to do this the other way ’round and first argue for prevention.  It’s just that you’re more likely to find your arguments for cure to be more successful.

It’s better to focus on the benefits

When people are thinking about doing something new, they wonder if the benefits of the ‘new’ thing are better than the benefits of the ‘current’ thing.

If they decide that the benefits of the ‘new’ thing are better then the ‘current’ thing, then they will start planning to do the new thing.

But then they get stuck because they start thinking about the risks or costs of this new thing – and they compare this to the benefits of the new thing. A risk/benefit analysis. While so long as they reckon the risks of the new thing are greater than the benefits of the new thing, they won’t do it – they wont take action.

Now there’s a real possibility that they’re making a mistake – that they’re overestimating the risks.  And if they’ve never experienced the benefits of this new thing, then they might underestimate the benefits.

So, always help people to focus on the benefits.  Even if you also help them see the risk or cost of not doing the ‘new’ thing, you should then focus on the benefits of doing it.  People prefer to focus on how good it’s going to be, not on how bad it will be if they don’t change.

So, whether you’re selling an idea, a product or a service:

1. help people understand the risks and costs of taking the action,
2. then help them to focus on the risks and costs of not taking the action, and
3. then finish on the real benefits of taking the action – and make sure that they don’t gloss over this.

Make sure they really understand the benefits.  This is a great plan for your message if you want to be highly influential.

Right Message, Right People, Right Time

Here is the old marketing nugget.  You want to give the right message, to the right people, and the right time. There’s little point selling umbrellas in the summer to people who don’t go outside.  That’s obvious right – so take a look at your messaging.  Your communications.  Your email marketing.  Your newsletters.  Your ads.

Have you got your message ‘right’?  Are you sending it to the ‘right’ people.  And how’s your timing?

Think about your messaging for the next 12 months and plan it properly.  You will do better than the majority of people who don’t do this – and the benefits to you are that you will help people get what they want, and in return you will get what you want.  What more could you ask for?

Your idea, product or service should really sell itself

Suddenly, I was thrust into the speaking circuit for online business and marketing.

Boy, are there some stories to tell.  One story that I can relay is the fascination so many people have with how to use ‘marketing’ to help sell products and services, without consideration of the value of the products and services.

In other words, they want to learn “how to sell more shit”, with the emphasis being on tactics to sell stuff, even though the ‘stuff’ is no good.

And, the facts are, some of them do manage to sell a lot of useless shit – because the tactics do work.  Coming from a professional and academic background – I just wasn’t used to this.  I’m all for using proven principles of influence to help someone make a great decision – but to use them to get someone to make a bad decision, well, that’s not a legacy I’m looking to leave behind.

So, this lesson is a very simple one.  Your idea, product or service should be so good that you don’t need any tactics to get people to jump on board.

The idea should perfectly match a need or desire – and this perfect match should be all you need to sell your idea.

Now, for people who are selling things that have little or no value, then they have to rely on ‘tactics’ to sell stuff, because if people had their thinking caps on, they wouldn’t buy into it.  I don’t want to make a value judgement about what people sell or promote – other than to say, for me, I want to promote things that are valuable and transformative to people, and I suggest that you aim for the same.

The Opportunity of Free

Not all valuable and transformative ideas are easy for people to buy into.  What if they are complex, or require someone to experience the benefit before making a decision?  What do you do then?

This is the opportunity that ‘Free’ provides.

A lot has been written about ‘Free’, including an entire book on the topic, called, FREE: The future of a radical price.

The news is that giving something away for Free invokes actions in people that they don’t do with non-Free offers.  So, taking your product or service, or something that provides an experience of you, and making it available for Free, can be a great way to influence people – because you will get a greater response than if it’s not Free.

But there are traps and objections to Free.

• Do you really get a return on investment in the end?
• Does giving something away for free cheapen you or your product or service?
• Does giving something away for free attract their wrong people?

These are legitimate concerns, and there are ways to address them and still benefit from the power of Free.

First, you have to know how much it costs you to provide a sample of your stuff for free.  You also have to know how much a new client or customer is worth to you.  Lastly, you need to know how many people who take the free sample, then turn into clients / customers.

And all this points to one key thing that I’ve written about earlier.  Try to influence those people that you are most likely to influence – which means that you should know your target market very well.  Only give free stuff away to people who you know are interested in you – otherwise you will waste your free stuff and it will cheapen you and your product or service.

One potential problem I’ve noticed with giving stuff away for free is that, very often, the people you give it to, don’t attach value to it because it is free.  When I started my own consulting business, I would write an investigative report about someone’s online presence – and would spend hours on it.  I’d give it away for ‘free’ to a client, or potential client, and they’d just glance over it – and almost think that they deserved the report for free.

I didn’t like this and quickly learned to attach a value to these reports.  Even sending an invoice that showed the value of the report and then having a zero charge seemed to help people value this report.  Now, I’ve taken it a step further, and I offer the report for a fee.  The message here is that if you’re going to give something away for free, make sure that the people who take it are aware of the value.

Another insight into Free is this.  Everyone likes a good deal, but no-one likes to feel ‘cheap’.  So, when you’re giving something away, make sure that you don’t make people feel cheap or inferior.  You will definitely influence them if you do this – but you wont influence them in the direction you’d hoped.

The Power of the Story

I’ve already written about the power of the story to infulence, and it’s worth mentioning again here.  Often, a great way for your idea to ‘sell itself’ is with a story.  With story telling, you can set the scene and create an atmosphere of respect, desire and expectation.  And when you’ve done this, that’s when you can provide a free sample or experience.  By combining a great idea with a story and a free experience, you are layering some of the most powerful tools with which to influence people.

In Summary

1. Your idea, product or service should be so great that it sells itself
2. If you need to help people experience your idea, product or service, then consider providing an experience for free
3. If you decide to try this, make sure that you attach value to the thing you’re giving away for free and also make sure that you don’t make people feel cheap or inferior in the process.  Instead, make them feel as though they are getting a great deal – because, if you’re stuff is great, they are getting a great deal.
4. Lastly, use the power of a story to introduce your idea, product or service.  By doing all this, you will have created a sophisticated method of influence – and importantly, you will be helping people make great decisions.

Remember to leave a comment and if you liked it, share this with your networks.  Ta!

A common truism is that ‘the more you tell, the more you sell‘ – whether you’re selling ideas, yourself, products or services.  If a person is interested in your ideas, or is interested in spending money with you, then they will take the time to listen to you, or read your material.

Of course, if you’re the one doing the talking, then you must capture and keep their attention, and you must engage their imagination.

Your communication has to be valuable to them – otherwise they’ll loose interest fast.

By teaching people what they need to know, you will create the environment for them to buy, without you having to do much ‘selling’.  If you’ve done your job correctly, you will:

• understand exactly what the person wants,
• have educated them about the best option,
• have uncovered and educated them about their concerns or doubts, and
• simply asked them if they would like to join, buy, proceed – or whatever it is you’d like them to do.

Educate in order to influence.

Even so, once you’ve grabbed their attention, you have to keep it, and educating them is a great way to do this.  You could focus on entertaining them – but this all depends on what you want to achieve.

If your aim is to entertain, then entertain them.

If your aim is to influence someone to take an action, then it’s probably better to educate, rather than entertain.  The people who are serious about you, your ideas, or your product or service, are there to be educated, not entertained.  You could waste a lot of time entertaining people who will never join you, and will never buy a thing from you.

How much do I have to tell them?

One of the main reasons for influence through education is that what you don’t tell someone may be the one thing they needed to know in order to be influenced.  So the idea here is to be thorough in your communication in order to increase your influence .  You shouldn’t assume that people understand what you’re on about … you need to lead them through it, one step at a time.  You need to be empathetic and remember what it’s like ‘not to know what you know’.

A picture says a thousand words … or maybe not?

When it comes to websites, posters, presentations, and video, people will very often use pictures and images to convey an idea or feeling.  They say a picture says a thousand words – but I wonder they are the thousand words you really want the picture to say.  Hmmm…

Videos and images shouldn’t be used just to entertain or decorate – they should be used to increase the response that you would normally get from text alone.  So, before you use images or video, consider if they are effective and will specifically increase the response you’re after.  Most people don’t read ads for entertainment – and if they do, then they’re probably not all that serious about your ideas, and they’re probably not going to become your customers.

Many people just presume that images or video will be better ‘educators’ than text alone – but you just don’t know this unless you test it.

How you can educate people to influence them?

If you would like to influence people through education, then there are some steps to observe.

1. The first step is to make people aware of whatever ‘thing’ you want to influence them about.  You have to grab their attention, and you could use an approach outlined in part 1 of this series.
2. Once they are aware, you then need to provide education – enough to get them to consider making a change in their life, and enough to get them to consider stopping their current behaviour
3. Once they’re considering that change, you need to educate them about how great the benefits of this change will be in comparison to the cost or risk of making the change.
4. You also need to educate them about how to make the change, and how to make sure they complete the change.  This is all about persistence.
5. Lastly, after they’ve persisted and successfully made the change, you need to educate them about the next obvious step and how to get other people to make the same change

Don’t forget to leave a comment below, and click those buttons to share.

I really wasn’t a great sales person when I worked in retail fashion all those years ago.  I had no idea what I was doing and I had no training.  On top of that, I didn’t want to be seen to be ‘selling’ because I had this feeling that ‘selling’ was bad.

On the other hand, I’d see people put on clothes that clearly didn’t work for them, and I’d ‘influence’ them toward another item of clothing.  For some reason, I’d separated the act of ‘selling’ from that of ‘influence and persuasion’.

I have a different point of view these days.  I no longer view selling as ‘bad’, and I also understand that ‘selling’ can be much easier if you become ‘influential’. In this series I’m writing on influence, I take the approach that everyone is ‘selling’ something – whether it’s an idea, themselves, a product or service.  So, when I talk about selling, I refer to its broadest sense.

One insight from my early days in retail that has stayed with me is that the only reason a sale ever gets made, is because someone decides to buy.  This effectively means that you can’t ‘close’ a sale – only the buyer can.  I was impressed to find out that a more informed person agreed with me before I’d even thought about it

Focus on why people buy, not on how to sell them.

When I started thinking about why people buy instead of thinking about how to sell, I started to gain all sorts of valuable insights.  If you understand why people buy you can be far more influential in their buying decision.  But this isn’t just about buying and selling products or services – it’s also about spreading ideas.

Selling doesn’t matter – only buying does

Sales has to be one of the oldest professions right?  And now that we’re in the digital age, the online sales process is essential for any business to understand and optimise.  But the choice with digital is overwhelming.  There are so many options available to get leads and sell your products, services, or ideas.

So, when it comes to choosing a digital strategy, ask yourself if it would actually help you sell in person?  For example, if you’re going to do an online video – would the same message work if you were face to face?  Instead of thinking about the billions of people online, think instead of each person as an individual who would likely want or need your product or service.  

Remember that the people you serve are self-focused and dont care much about you or your business. They seek benefits for themselves.  Some of the benefits they seek are obvious, while others are hidden benefits to which they will never admit.  If you can understand this.  If you can put yourself in the position of the buyer and seek to understand them, to understand what their obvious and hidden motives are, then you can simply recommend the solution and they’ll do all the buying you need them to do.

What do you think about this?  How do you feel about ‘selling’?  Are you as influential as you could be?

If you liked this, if it made you think, please leave a comment below and share this with your network.

Against. Banging.  Brick wall.  Your head. 

Put those words together in a sentence and you get ‘banging your head against a brick wall’.  And that’s what it’s like when you try to influence people who are impervious to your influence.

Someone’s ass is on the line, so the bottom line does matter

Sometimes you are faced with a situation in which you have to influence someone, or a group of people, who are resistant to you.  This is where you have to call upon your best powers of influence, and it’s often where your highest level of skill is required.  Even then, this can fail.

Compare this instead to the ease with which some people follow your lead.  Agree with your ideas.  Take hold of your vision and run with it.  It makes sense to go to groups of people who you are most likely to be able to influence.  This is especially true in business when the bottom line matters.

I’m a lover not a fighter

In my short, sweet life, I have had the opportunity to work with brilliant people who have amazing knowledge and yet fail to influence people because they took the right message to the wrong crowd.

Fighting for your point of view is a tricky game to play and even if ‘you’ win it often means ‘they’ lost – and chances are that ‘they’ probably didn’t like losing.

You end up with an enemy or a begrudging ally.  Fighting isn’t really the kind of influence I’m writing about in this series.  I’m after a more sophisticated and beneficial approach that’s win-win, not win-lose.

Imagine that instead of fighting or arguing, you were able to subtly lead people to a conclusion that they come to themselves and that is in favour of your idea.  It’s much better when they conclude that the idea is good – because all you have to do then is agree with them – not the other way ’round - and hey presto you’re on the same page.

Once this happens and people agree with your idea, then your ability to influence them increases.

So, to start with, focus on those people that you can influence and save the other people up for a rainy day. There’s plenty of people to choose from, so why choose those that are the most difficult to influence?  That’s just hard work.

How does this apply in your work or business?

The only people you should be focussed on are your customers (clients) – or people who are very likely to become your customers.  Why spend time or money on people who aren’t likely to become your customers?  It makes no sense…

Every piece of advertising, every marketing strategy, every product and every communication should be focussed on existing customers or new customers.

This sounds like simple advice, but in my consulting business I’ve come across small and large organisations that mess this up – and the cost can be massive.

One organisation in particular took out a week of national TV advertising that resulted in no new business.  Why?  Well, besides that fact that the ad lacked basic aspects of influence, it was aired to a non-targeted audience.  They spent a small fortune to send a message to millions of people of whom only a small fraction would be interested.

And to make matters worse, they had no control over when that small fraction was going to be watching the TV at the exact time that the ad was aired.  (In fact, this is the problem with much advertising and marketing – and why I prefer to use digital marketing that can be very highly targeted)

To be influential in business, you must understand your potential customer.  You must know how to communicate with them directly.  And then you must focus on them – and only them.  Don’t waste precious time and money on advertising and marketing to the wrong crowd.  Don’t waste time and money on stunts in the hope that they’ll ‘work’.  Many promotional campaigns are a complete waste of time for this very reason – and hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars, can be at stake.

Are you prepared to invest time and money to gratify or indulge an idea of your designer, advertiser, marketer – or yourself?   In business, you are only after new customers or repeat purchases by existing customers.  Don’t waste money on ideas that you haven’t tested first, or on people who are not your likely customers.  The money wasted on this sort of thing is worth your mortgage, your car, your kids school fees, your holiday home and a lifetime of international travel! (Which I’m quite fond of myself…)

Take this message away with you…

Find out who is most likely to respond to your ideas – and go to them first.  Sometimes the people most likely to benefit aren’t the ones most likely to respond – which is why testing is so important.  So, do yourself a favour – whether it’s in your personal relationships or in your work or business – become more influential by finding those most likely to respond – the early adopters who will help you to grow your idea.

Will you help me grow my ideas here?  It’s easy – ya just have to click on the facebook or +1 buttons below to share this with your friend and colleagues and you’re done.  Thanks.

Sometimes, there’s a lot on the line.  A business deal.  A job interview.  A relationship.  An election.

Your ability to influence others could have a massive impact on the future direction of your life.

I’m not someone who wants to leave this to chance.  I want to have as much control as possible over the outcome.  Are you the same as me?  Think about a situation you face right now that would benefit if you had more influence.

Test your tactics to maximise your results

Even though it’s useful to be able to apply various techniques to increase your influence, it’s even more useful to know with certainty, which ones work best for you in your life or your business.  Testing is such an important process to go through – especially when there’s a lot at stake.  Of course, there’s times when testing just isn’t practical, and you have to rely on your skills and best judgement.  But there are lot’s of times when you could compare two or more different approaches to find out which one worked best – and then continue to use the winning approach.

Imagine, for example, spending 1K, 5K or even 50K on a website and not knowing if that website was the most effective for your business.  Would another design have led to more sales?  If you don’t test, you’ll never know.  Yet this is how the majority of money is spent on websites.

Hoping or knowing?

All the money is spent on ‘hoping’ that the design you’ve come up with is the best one.  Imagine if you tested two different home pages, and found that one resulted in double the calls or double the sales.  How gutted would be you if you hadn’t tested and were left stuck with the dud.  Is your current website a dud?  If you’ve never tested it, it might be?  (I’ve got another blog series coming up soon on profit optimisation that you might want to look at)

Imagine spending 5K on a logo for your brand.  Who told you this was the best logo?  Was it the designer?  How do they know?  Was it your marketing team?  How would they know?  Was it your partner?  How would they know?

The fact is – they don’t know – none of them do.  The only way to know if your logo is the best logo for your brand is to test it in the market place.  The market will tell you which logo they like best – and it might be completely different from what you or any of your advisors guess.

Think about it from a medical perspective.  Pharmaceutical companies go through multiple stages of testing a new drug before testing it on humans – and then before the drug has widespread use, it must first be tested to see if it is better than the existing drug on the market.  When a pharmaceutical company finally discovers a drug that is better than others on the market, they can then take that drug to market with the confidence and proof – and maybe a billion dollars in sales.

Do you understand that testing to discover the best solution magnifies your powers of influence?

Testing like this used to be the domain of large agencies, however these days testing is much easier.   Get someone who knows how to do facebook advertising and run some ads using different logos or headlines to find which one most people click on – or use Google adwords.  Or send a survey to your existing database and ask them.

The real cost of not testing

Imagine you’ve got a database of 20,000 customers and you’ve been working on a new product to help them.  You’ve been working hard for 6 months.  It finally comes to the day when you’re going to announce this product.  You’ve written the email – and then you sit at the computer and you have to insert an email subject line.  But you haven’t really thought about the subject line.  And what does it matter, right?  It’s just a single sentence.

And so you make up the subject line on the spot and send out your email to your 20,000 customers – and in that one action you could lose yourself tens of thousands of dollars.  Why?  Because there might be a much better subject line that causes 30-40% more people to open your email, see your offer, and buy your new product.

But you’d never know if you never tested a few email subject lines before hand to know which one got the highest open rates.

Not only does failing to test things like email subject lines cost you big time, it also wastes the time and money you put into your product development in the first place.

Now let me take a more personal example that doesn’t include ‘formal’ testing.  Imagine spending 6 years with your child during their teenage years.  You could leave your relationship to chance and your natural skills as a parent.  Or, you could practice your influence skills to find out which one your child responds to best.

Imagine if you found one particular approach that your child really responded to – and now imagine if you hadn’t taken the time to test.  What difference would that make to your relationship over that period of 6 years and beyond.

Lastly, as a personal example, I discovered that one of the key reasons I am influential is that I enthusiastically share my knowledge with people and explain how this knowledge applies to them and how it can improve their lives.  It works really well, except there are just some people who don’t respond to enthusiasm.

So, if enthusiasm is your super power and you come across someone who is impervious to your enthusiasm – what then?

Well, if you haven’t tried and tested alternative methods of influencing people, then you’d never know what else to try.  I’ve seen this have a massive impact in my own life and also in other peoples lives. I think that not learning, applying, and testing the techniques of influence is a risky behaviour.

How you can apply this idea

Think about your personal life and work life right now.  Think about a relationship or an important situation which you would like to change or improve.  Maybe you’re writing a book.  Starting a business.  Having relationship issues with your partner.  Take a step back and consider all that you are doing to engage or interact with the other people involved.  How much of your communication are you leaving to chance and how much of it is delivered on purpose and with attention to influence?  How many assumptions about your communication are you making?  Is there a better way to approach your communication strategy?

There probably is – and you wont know unless you try something new and, where practical, formally test different approaches.

5 Random Examples of Attention to Influence

1. If your website doesn’t have a video on the home page, then go record a video for the home page and test to find out which one works better
2. If you always use ‘fear’ as a way to influence people, try using ‘hope’ instead to see which works better
3. If you always use the same benefit to sell a product, then try a different story and sell on a different benefit
4. If you always use the ‘authority’ factor to influence, try using the ‘reverse attention‘ technique and see which one works better
5. If you always use logic to win an argument, try using social proof as evidence of your way of doing things

The take home message from this post should be that you have no idea what’s really going to work – so why leave it to chance or arrogance.  Test your approach. Try different approaches.  And let the people who you are trying to influence let you know which approach works best by their behaviour and the decision’s they make.

Lastly, I’d like to congratulate you on reading this far. People like you are exactly who I want to read my blog because you’re also the type of person who recognises a good thing when they spot it and shares it with their friends.  Please feel free to go ahead and click the Like, Tweet and Google +1 buttons below – and leave a comment if you’re so inclined – I’m just like you and love to get feedback.

Years ago – as a teenager – I was a fanatical drummer.  I’d delivered enough newspapers and mowed enough lawns to finally purchase my very own kit.  It was loud at our place.

The idea of getting paid to play drums was like a fantasy – but that’s exactly the opportunity that presented itself to me.  My mother was doing some part time work, playing the piano for a dance class, and they needed a drummer too.  ”Great”, I thought, “this beats delivering papers … and I’ll be able to save up to buy more stuff for my kit.”

I turned up early on my first afternoon – feeling somewhat nervous.  There were lot’s of little ballerina’s – in the 5-15 year old age bracket – and what looked like concerned mothers looking on as I self-consciously set up my drum kit next to the piano.  And I had everything.  The base drum, snare, hi-hats, cymbals, tom-toms, floor tom.

The teacher arrived, and the children lined up ready to start.  The pianist (my Mum) started, and so did I.  Perfectly in time I might add.

But it was all wrong.

The teacher immediately stopped the class and started shaking her head, saying “no, no, no … we don’t need that … we just need a marching beat … can you do that?”

Well, I felt like a complete idiot.  Here I was, probably 15 at the time, embarrassed in front of a room full of girls – this is the opposite to every drummers wildest dreams.

I managed to fake it for the rest of the class, with some marching beat that I conjured up – but I wasn’t asked back.

What’s the point?

It didn’t matter that I had a great, new, shiny drumkit.  It didn’t matter that I could play advanced syncopated rhythms.  It didn’t even matter that I was the pianists son!

Basically, what I had to offer them, wasn’t what they wanted, or needed.

So, what are you doing right now in your business that is making you all excited – but that isn’t what your market wants, or needs?  What new toys have you bought, that just don’t captivate the imagination of the people you serve?

If you’re finding that business isn’t going that great, then this is basic place to start examining what you’re doing.

The first rule of business isn’t that the customer is always right.  But the first rule about business is that it is ALL about the customer, client, or patient.  It’s not about you or your toys or your skills or your qualifications … its only about the people you serve and whether or not you can inform them, entertain them, help them or transform them.

The simple facts are that if you find that your product or service doesn’t match your market – then you either need to change your product or service, or find a market that wants or needs what you’ve currently got to offer.  Without this fundamental piece of the business puzzle in place … then the rest will just be endless hard freakin’ work.

I hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane … and if you like being reminded about business fundamental by people who are living the business dream, then you’ll probably like this free video training by Siimon Reynolds.  Siimon is an award winning advertiser and creative director who built his company to 500 million with 6000 staff.  He’s giving away a training module on how great entrepreneurs think – it’s normally worth a bunch of money, but you can get it here for nutthin’.  Check it out – it’s good.

In any case, whatever you do, don’t try and sell fancy drum rhythms to people who want a marching band … it just wont work